Trump's attempt to limit who's really welcome

The Trump administration is trying to pass yet another rule forcing legal immigrants into lives as second-class citizens (to say nothing of those without papers, for whom conditions are even worse.) The proposed “public charge rule” would allow immigration officers to consider legal residents’ use of public benefits, such as Medicaid, food stamps, and federal housing subsidies, in decisions about green card applications. This would lead to discrimination against poor immigrants because of their supposed likelihood to “become a public charge.”

This rule is inhumane and will jeopardize the lives of immigrants around the country. Rumors of the change earlier this year have already caused many legal residents to forgo benefits for which they are eligible. Changing the rule will oblige people into abstaining from food or medical care in order to have a chance at permanent residency.

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen says that the rule will ensure that immigrants “are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers,” but immigrants themselves (both authorized and unauthorized) pay billions of dollars in taxes annually. Many also work essential jobs that most citizens do not want — jobs that do not pay living wages and require people to use public benefits in the first place.

This country has long discriminated between “welcome” and “unwelcome” immigrants, but this rule reaches a new level of depravity. It would shut the door on the “huddled masses” and accept only wealthy immigrants.